I have been fortunate enough to secure offers from one of the top European AM firms and also from an American BB (ER). Both offers are for their respective London's office.
I wonder what offer should I pick if my long-run goal is breaking into the HF industry.
| Best Public Markets Gig? ER, MM HF, SM HF, or LO AM? | 13 | 2d | ||
| +43 | How to start a family office (HF rainmaker) | 17 | 1d | |
| +34 | Law to Quant Pivot? | 10 | 2d | |
| +22 | Starting Personal Account | 12 | 3h | |
| +22 | Looking for a Fund Manager to partner with to start a new fund. | 15 | 6h | |
| +21 | People who work at hedge funds, what made you interested initially? | 13 | 21h | |
| +20 | How to destress at Pod HF? | 8 | 14h | |
| +19 | Measuring what I have; getting restless | 8 | 27m | |
| +19 | Hedge Fund WLB | 6 | 1d | |
| +19 | HF Final Round Interview | 4 | 4d |
Career Resources
Get instant access to lessons taught by experienced private equity pros and bulge bracket investment bankers including financial statement modeling, DCF, M&A, LBO, Comps and Excel Modeling.
If the Euro AM offer entails fundamental research, take that.
It entails fundamental research, but potential FT compensation may be significantly lower at the AM shop. Is still worth to take the AM internship?
Please focus on relevant skills, instead of pay. The wealth creation upside on the buy-side is limitless.
Understood. Thx a lot for the advice!
Would consider ER more if it was for a top BB like GS/MS/JP/BoA. Its not always as intellectually honest or challenging as AM, but your exposure to stakeholders (clients, management teams etc) will be higher, and you are likely to develop a better network of people who are in/ want to go into HFs. You're also more likely to helped by colleagues when you want to exit into HFs compared to in AM (esp a long only). Of course it entirely depends on the team / YMMV and all that. Congrats and good luck.
Yes, the ER offer is at one of the BB you mentioned.
Agree with above here, also have a look if the ER team is top ranked? That will have huge sway on your HF recruiting later on!
I’ll just say that if the AM fund is a top shop say Fidelity/Capital etc. I would definitely chose that over ER!
Best of luck and congrats on both offers
MS is probably the only one of the four mentioned above that has a strong rep for the quality of analysts/research in London. GS research is just an IPO factory and has a lot of extremely inexperienced lead analysts.
The reality is that, at this stage of your career, you probably don't know enough about the industry to really know what you want. That is not a critique but just a fact that you haven't been exposed to enough of the business to know what you will really enjoy. I was 100% sure I wanted to be a long-only value investor at university and yet here I am (10 years later) working in credit and I couldn't imagine not working in credit. You don't say what the role is in the AM. Is it a rotational program or is it ER within the AM? What I would say is that BB-ER opens doors to both the HF world and the long-only AM world, but it is much harder to move from an AM (think Schroders, Fidelity, M&G) to a HF due to the fact that AM's are considered a bit sleepy and risk averse by the HF crowd in Mayfair. While sell-side ER is not really investing, it exposes you to different styles of investing (your buy side clients), will give you good modelling skills, and will allow you to build a network of contacts. The problem with ER is that the industry is under immense pressure from Mifid 2 and there are a lot of analysts looking to make the same jump so competition is tough.
If the buyside role is for research within a fundamental team that offers development opportunities and you think they will train you properly then go for that. Look at where people from the prospective firm have exited to in the past and that may give you an indication of the skillset they have developed.
On the ER job offer, I'd focus on trying to go into sectors that develop a more generalist skillset e.g TMT, Media, Consumer Industrials. Focusing on banks/insurance, energy or niche industries may limit exit opportunities.
The absolute key is learning the skills for the job though - idea generation, modelling, mapping industries, understand what truly drives returns in an industry.
Got your point. If I finally pick the ER gig I will try to get into a more generalist team. Thanks a lot for the advice!
It is just so much easier to hire someone with a generalist skillset than getting a FIG specialist in and converting them to cash flow rather than balance sheet driven business models.
That said, FIG analysts who are good tend to make an awful lot of money. I just know many hedge funds, especially in London, avoid financials as a core part of their process.
Best sell-side in London is Exane, Redburn, MS, Barclays, Citi and JPM.
Is this ranking list for financials or overall?
I know some of these shops are ranked really well in II but I’m not sure if that matters in HF recruiting or not? As a HF professional, would you say it’s a big factor?
Overall. I don't have banks/insurance in my coverage and this is my personal preference for who I use. I also use a number of boutiques and alt data vendors.
I would say II is not that important and let's face it you are going to be an associate/junior for the first 18 months anyway. Main things are the basic skill development (modelling, powerpoint, writing in a concise and punchy way - this matters buy or sell-side) and ability to develop investment theses.
On specific bank, I've seen HF hire from nearly every one of the banks I have listed. It is not like the Cazenove team of the late 90s/early 2000s that now dominates the London Equity L/S landscape aymore in terms of recruiting (Egerton, AKO, TCI, Hengistbury and many others have been/are currently well stocked of Caz alums).
In London it is a lot of referrals for hiring (it is free vs. paying a recruiter a fat fee) and a small group of headhunters so network. There is a tweeter under the handle @s_curvecap on the Twitter who has recently posted about some of these things in depth.
Possible to elaborate more on Barclays?
¿What about BoFA and Bernstein?
Both solid reputations. I don't use Bernstein so can't really comment but definitely move stocks when they upgrade/downgrade things. BofA has done a good rebuild of distribution post cutting too far around the adoption of MIFID II in Europe and a number of departures to other banks. I also think Jefferies are doing great things and are at the forefront of many debates - picked up a number of ex DB analysts.
Any insights on CS/UBS/DB?
jajaja tenemos un Latino
Aut a deserunt asperiores ut praesentium cupiditate praesentium. Dolores consequatur ratione et eos. Iure aut quia sed cupiditate consectetur rerum qui. Porro exercitationem quis non qui. Dolorem dignissimos possimus optio necessitatibus in pariatur est.
Eveniet quo atque ad voluptas eius in. Voluptatem vel rerum vel. Eum sed molestiae voluptas nisi illum. Hic et ut doloremque et eligendi ullam.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...